On the 11th of March, the NTSB released an aviation investigation preliminary report on the mid-air collision between PSA Airlines flight 5342 and a Sikorsky UH60L US Army helicopter. At the same time, they released an an urgent recommendation report calling for the FAA to close the helicopter route that the military helicopter was following…
Read more… 21 Mar 25
The big news this week is video footage of American Airlines flight 1006 which caught fire at Denver airport yesterday. American Airlines flight 1006 was a passenger flight scheduled for a two-hour flight from Colorado Springs Airport to Dallas-Fort Worth, departing Colorado Springs on time at 16:37 local time. There were six crew and 172…
Read more… 14 Mar 25
I’m on the road this week but luckily for us, my friend Elisa Bird agreed that I could share one of her great articles with you all. Given the frantic pace of aviation news lately, I thought perhaps a visit to an accident of yesteryear with Elisa’s insight would be welcome, specifically around the emergency…
Read more… 7 Mar 25
This year is turning out to be quite the collection of aviation incidents, with the dramatic video of Southwest flight 2504’s go-around at Chicago Midway making headlines around the world. This is feeding into a growing narrative of aviation issues, especially in the US, with many expressing concern that aviation is no longer safe. Part…
Read more… 28 Feb 25
On the 17th of February 2025, Delta flight 4819 from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Toronto, Ontario suffered a hard landing and flipped over, bursting into flames. The aircraft was fully loaded with 76 passengers and four crew on board. One passenger wrote about the experience on Reddit: I felt what seemed like too violent of jerking…
Read more… 21 Feb 25
On the 11th of February 2025, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 was cleared for take-off at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Boeing (registered in Brazil as PS-GPP) was operated by GOL Transportes Aeros, a low-cost airline based in Rio de Janeiro. That morning, it was scheduled for flight G3-1674, a late-night domestic flight from Rio…
Read more… 14 Feb 25
The Anatomy of an A350–CRJ Collision at Atlanta
On the 10th of September 2024, an Airbus A350 took the tail off of a Bombardier CRJ at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. Delta Air Lines flight 295…
Why KLM Cut the Steering Cables on Two Perfectly Functional Boeing 737s
Last month, we looked at the night of 28th of November 2004 at Barcelona Airport. KLM 1673 ran off the runway at high speed, stopping just short of a canal.…
How Important is Having a Sterile Cockpit?
This question was posted to r/flying by a private pilot who wanted to know: do airline pilots ever engage in small talk about irrelevant things during taxiing, run-up, takeoff, and…
Someone has to write the TAF
It turns out that there a person sitting there deciding what the weather is going to do. Which seems obvious, except that I had somehow never asked msyelf who “someone”…
The CIA's Shark Screen
Today we have a guest post from the CIA! In their archives, researching something completely different, I found the answer to a question I never thought to ask. I immediately…
The First Jet to Land on an Aircraft Carrier (Deliberately)
“The Vampire was the first jet to land on a moving aircraft carrier deliberately.” This quote from Airshow Luke, our MC at the Legacy of Liberty airshow, made me almost…
Bird Strikes, Balloon Landings and Falling in Love with a Boeing 777
The exciting news on Fear of Landing this week was a huge scare about critical vulnerabilities in PHP. PHP is widely used on the web, including in WordPress, which is…
Petrified, Petrified, Petrified
There’s been some interesting reporting in the UK media about a “near disaster” over Canary Wharf involving the captain having to intervene (the horror!) after air data systems failed on…